With the recent introduction of bakeries set up in commercial shopping outlets, a premium is placed on working space and flexibility of product production. As many of the products are produced in relatively small runs, the economics of a bakery of this type is generally improved if as many different types of product can be produced from as few of dough types as possible.
In the effort to diversify product lines from single dough sources, it is often desirable to use the same dough for loaf production as roll production. For roll production, this involves moulding the dough, dividing the dough into appropriate sized portions and then shaping the dough into final product form prior to baking.
Recently, the applicant has developed a baking process in which frozen dough is thawed and moulded prior to preparation into its final product form. In the case of rolls, the pressure moulded dough is divided and shaped prior to baking. The applicant has found that particularly for products made from frozen dough, it is preferable to allow the dough a period of time after being divided to relax prior to being rounded into a neat ball. However, in a conventional moulding apparatus, allowing time for the dough to prove either decreases the rate of production or increases the space required for preparation processes.
Ideally it would be preferable to be able to use the same apparatus to perform at least the common operations and selectively switch the apparatus to operations required to produce different products from substantially the same dough types.